Our landlady assures us that let the weather look as threatening as it would, the sun always contrived to burst out when in former times the late king rode into the arena to give the prizes; and she is evidently by no means certain it will not pour all three days of the fair this year.  However, to judge from the skies, “this one” is not so bad as he might be:  the sun shines propitious on him too, and consequently on us as we set forth to see what we can see.  The second is the great day, as the prizes are then distributed; but already on Monday the booths and shows were on the field, and Cannstatt was gay with banners and wreaths and garlands of green.  The carpenters were still hard at work hammering at seats for us to occupy next day, but the wonderful triumphal arch stood quite completed and worthy of sincere admiration.  No one knows who has not seen it worked into an architectural design how beautiful a string of onions can be, how gorgeous a row of vegetable-marrows, how delicate a cluster of turnips.  It sounds puerile, but it was lovely nevertheless.  Imagine a temple-like construction all composed of odorous pine, with an arched portal on either hand, and then every line and curve, every niche and pillar and balustrade, defined with glowing fruit.  It was looped in festoons and hung in tassels of red and white and gold:  the arms of Wuertemberg even were traced in yellow corn, while above it all rose a graceful column, a mosaic from base to summit of every fruit that autumn can bring to perfection.

That was the great show:  after that, mammoth cucumbers and carrots or rows of agricultural implements did not detain us long.  The next best thing was to see the booths and the crowd on the outskirts of the exhibition.  There the circus was in full blast, and triumphant, brazen-throated opposition to all smaller attractions that had ventured into that neighborhood.  The performing dogs in red petticoats were reduced to making an appearance before their tent to entice spectators, and Harlequin and Columbine had to shout themselves hoarse inviting people to come in and split with laughter for sixpence.  Those who did not aspire to a seat under painted canvas gathered round a melancholy bear dancing a pas seul on the grass with heartbroken gravity.  Then came the Schuetzhallen, where the marksmen stationed themselves three feet from the target and cracked away at it with no other visible effect than that produced on a monkey doing its tricks close by:  at every shot the poor little creature stopped fiddling and looked over its shoulder with a distressed air of “If I’m not hit this time!” Hand-organs, penny trumpets and rattles quite drowned the voice of a street-songstress with a large assortment of vocal music before her, from which she was giving the public a selection.  Whether the songs had any reference to the pictures that formed her background we did not discover, but, at all events, the latter were tragic in the extreme.  “The twenty-four-year-old